Last year, the Government promised to set up an Industrial Strategy Council. According to the EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, Britain’s manufacturers are now calling for this body “to be immediately created and given the urgent task of setting clear goals that will focus on solutions to boost manufacturing productivity growth”.

This comes on the back of new research showing the evolution of manufacturing sub-sector productivity growth against key international competitors before and after the financial crisis (2008), including where the problems and opportunities for growth now are.

Ms Lee Hopley, chief economist at EEF, said: “We’ve known about the productivity problem for some time, with various attempts made to try and fix it across the whole economy.

“Productivity growth matters for wages and international competitiveness, yet 10 years on from the start of the financial crisis, these attempts have not delivered a major shift, so we need to tackle the challenge in a different way.”

According to the report, Unpacking the Puzzle, there is no single factor that can completely explain the productivity performance of all manufacturing sub-sectors.

EEF says it intends to use the research as a starting point for in-depth analysis (over the summer) of manufacturing sector productivity before producing a report in the autumn. This will contain policy recommendations for the Autumn Budget.